4 Reasons the Grey's Anatomy Premiere Was Incredible Television, Plain and Simple

Taking everything else into account — the performances, the direction, and any of the other components of a great television episode — and the incident itself is just plain captivating. The whole thing plays out almost like a sequence from a horror film: Meredith's back is turned, and we watch the patient twitch into consciousness and rise from his bed. Just as the attack reaches a peak, the scene cuts away. The sounds of a busy hospital flood in. We're left to fill in the horrifying blanks on our own.

As Grey's fans, we're conditioned to believe that Meredith can get through anything. But as she's overpowered by a confused patient, as she's beaten behind a closed door and drawn blinds, as she's left paralyzed on the hospital floor, we worry. Can she really make it through one more time? We watch as all hands are on deck to save Meredith's life, and for a brief moment, we're really not sure. That's kind of the beauty of the show — no one is ever really safe, even if we'd like to believe they are.

One of the most chilling aspects of the episode is that Meredith suffers temporary deafness at the hands of her attacker. We're experiencing the trauma from the perspective of Meredith herself. We switch between the outside trauma scene and the internal experience of Meredith, in which sound becomes muffled, lost in the chaos. The tumultuous scene dulls to a hum, which is almost more terrifying than the frantic yelling and shuffling of our favorite doctors. It's moments like this that really drive home what Washington has brought to the table: a visceral, shocking experience.

The attack really puts Meredith out of commission. She can't hear. She can't speak. In the trauma room, her jaw seems to be clamped shut. Once the essential work of saving her is over, she still doesn't really have much to say. This presents actress Ellen Pompeo with a unique challenge. She has to portray all the pain and suffering — and all the fear and dread experienced by her character — without the ability to speak. Directly after the attack, she only has her wide, pleading eyes and exasperated screams of pain to express herself. As she recovers for a large portion of the episode, she really only has the luxury of facial expressions. And yet, we connect deeply to Meredith, maybe because we've known her so long. A lot of it, though, is Pompeo's personal legwork as an actress. She positively shines.

In the end, this episode really just captures what makes Grey's Anatomy great. It serves as a marker for why we became so obsessed. The compelling, high-stakes emergency has endangered one of the main characters. It depicts the situation in an interesting, arresting way. It has us at the edge of our seats. It has us unsure of the result. Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects, too, is that creator Shonda Rhimes really knows how to lean in to trauma. Meredith may have survived, but she is not OK. She'll need time before she's OK, and that's a tragically true and comforting fact. Often a TV show's fatal flaw of a show is a noted rush to move on past harrowing circumstances. On Grey's Anatomy, though, there are scars after these wounds. The characters actually grieve their trauma. They do not bounce back fast. They seem real and unbearably human.